Israel Studies

Vision Statement

The Israel Studies program of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at UT Austin seeks to cultivate knowledge and understanding of Israel’s histories, cultures, and politics in regional and comparative contexts. To help forge and sustain an intellectual environment characterized by interdisciplinary approaches, Israel Studies sponsors academic events for campus and community audiences. Many of these are relevant not only for Israel but also beyond, examining various cultural traditions, languages, religions, nationalisms, and civic life. Israel Studies regularly collaborates with other campus units, such as the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Department of History, and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. We welcome the participation and respectful engagement of people from diverse personal backgrounds, political perspectives, and academic disciplines. To foreground the multivocal and heterogeneous narratives of Israel sometimes overshadowed by dominant historical and political discourses, we particularly promote scholarship on Israel’s rich and variegated cultures and arts.
Our academic programming is open to the public and includes two annual lecture series, language scholarships for the study of Hebrew and Arabic, travel stipends for research and study abroad, and Salon Sifrut, a Hebrew literary salon. Our goal is to promote an engagement with Israeli society and culture, history and politics, that is nuanced, complex, and multifaceted.

Statement by the Executive Committee of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies

In the spirit of openness and intellectual inquiry, the Schusterman Center does not support a boycott of Israel. The Center does support evidence-based research and academic freedom in the fullest sense of the word.  We do not evaluate outside speakers, affiliated faculty members, students, or members of the general public with regard to their political beliefs, affiliations, or positions.  The political positions of speakers, faculty members, students, and members of the general public are theirs alone and not those of the Center.  

Resources on the Israel-Gaza War

The UT Libraries’ Guide to Israel/Palestine provides a starting point for research on Israel/Palestine. The purpose of this guide is to provide resources that will enable students and scholars to gain an understanding of the issues at stake and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Thank you to the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University for compiling a Resource Guide on the Israel-Gaza War and for granting permission to post it on our website. Please note: Studying Israel requires engagement with a variety of perspectives on important topics. The resources included here represent diverse academic and political perspectives. They are not exhaustive, nor do they necessarily reflect the views of Israel Studies at UT, the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, or the University of Texas at Austin. We encourage users to approach each resource critically.
 

Photo caption: Painting of Tel Aviv by Israeli Artist Raphael Perez.